The Stoic Creed - College of Stoic Philosophers

ETHICS: DEFECTS 193
and to stimulate to a nearer and nearer approach to
that, acting all the while as a beacon and a lure ;
and
it is
enough if this ideal embody desirable elements that
are realizable, though never actually realized by the
individual here, and if it elevate and encourage and
improve him who strives to attain to it. We need not,
then, lay great stress on the fact that, when the Stoics
pointed to Hercules, or to Socrates, or to any other of
the very few saints of their calendar, you were able to
establish shortcomings and failings in the example, and
to prove that each was far from perfect. But it is
different if we are able to prove
that some of the
elements in the ideal are either not realizable, or are
such as, if realized, are not desirable would not
expand our nature, but cramp and contract it. And
this, or something like it, might be done in the case
of the ideal sage. In some respects, his is a nonhuman
and an unattainable condition, and a condition
which, if attained, would not be wholly desirable : at
best, it is agreeable only to a side of man s nature.
Hence, the Stoics, even in Zeno s time, amended
their doctrine of indifferent things, or things not in
our own power ; admitting that a relative value exists
among them : there are grades of indifference some
;
things being preferable to others, and, therefore, in
certain circumstances and for certain ends, to be more
or less eagerly pursued.
so far in their endeavour to
Indeed, the later Stoics went
adapt their conceptions to
the notions and customs of the vulgar, that they virtually
split up
Stoicism into an esoteric and an exoteric
portion. 1 The result was that even great teachers
1
See Cicero, De Officiis, ii.
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